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Friday, Jul. 25, 2003 - 7:15 p.m. STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE I have been enticed to write one of my own self-uplifting entries, mainly because right now I am feeling a very slight tinge of mania. It does not take much for me to tilt the scale. At one point a while back my psychiatrist and I agreed to lower my Depakote another 125 mg. This slight drop in my blood level started giving me manic symptoms within a week. The main symptom was my inability to sleep. But man, the euphoria felt good. I was tempted at the time to not even bother to call him because "I felt fine," just finer than fine. Of course, I did the responsible thing and called him and we raised my dosage. Since my original diagnosis, I never drank an alcoholic beverage, for a span of two years. My main fear was that the alcohol would destroy my liver because during my earlier days my Depakote dosage was through the roof. Of course, I am taking Lamictal, another anti-convulsant, which also deepens the effects of alcohol. I have been very lax toward my medication as of late because I have been going to the bars on the week-ends. Not on purpose, mind you, most of the time I get home so late and so exhausted that I just forget to take my pills. I am also leary of taking that 1000 mg dose of Depakote after I had a few beers. Of course, my max limit has been 3 beers a night. I figure I can tolerate 3 beers. But I came back tipsy last night. I had 2 beers at the Varsity and one big glass at the Chimes. I felt dangerously good. My anxiety level disappeared and I was easily able to approach women. I hit on two, both attractive and very willing to talk to me, but their rotten friends pulled them away when they were leaving the bar. When I got back home, I felt a little too loose to take my meds and I went straight to bed. So my Depakote level had dropped, and my mania is creeping in. I plan to demolish it with some slightly higher-than-usual doses this weekend. I am not planning to hit the bars tonight and tomorrow, either. My parents are staying over at my house tonight. They are headed to Shreveport to visit my younger brother on his birthday. I have decided to join them. I just do not see a good enough reason to stay in Baton Rouge, especially when I am going to feel guilty not seeing my brother when he knows I do not have a legitimate excuse not to see him. It is beginning to dawn on my how truly hopeless the bar scene is. So what if I become socially skilled in a bar setting? I feel so shallow just hitting on girls just for the sake of hitting on them. I honestly have no interest in bar women otherwise. For instance, I did not actually see a descent-looking girl in there that did not smoke. I refuse to date a girl that smokes. But based on my rules, I have to hit on them, otherwise I get no practice. And the two hits I had were not too bad. One was a professional ballerina from Louisville. And I have to drink. Otherwise I look like a nerd. Peer pressure is one thing, but when you are in a swimming pool you are supposed to wear swim trunks. In a bar, you are supposed to drink. If I stand there without a drink and my hand, I feel out-of-place, like a guy swimming fully clothed. I have to blend in, or the act simply will not work. This eharmony gig is starting to seem pretty lame to me. I sent an e-mail to the ugly match in Baton Rouge telling her that we had some personality differences and that I still wanted to meet her. She responded that she did not like my originally "deceptive" description of myself and that it was too soon to meet me. She basically said that she no longer wished to communicate with me. To maintain a little more anonymity in the eharmony process I described myself as being from Port Allen instead of Baton Rouge. I felt that this was harmless as the two cities are right across the river from each other. Surely a woman should be able to identify with this vigilance in a world full of wackos. Moreover, I see no harm in meeting a woman for coffee in a public place. Heck, women meet thugs in bars all the time and go home with them. But she was ugly. Good riddance. When I feel this slight euphoria I get glimpses of the person I want to be. I want to be able to live on an exact schedule with no worries that I might break it. I would do all my excercize, get all the sleep I require to function optimally, do all the things I enjoy doing, and perform my best at work. I would be outgoing and people would be attracted to my personality like a magnet. I have to learn to do this without the mania. But for some reason, the juice leaves me when I become balanced. I become blase and push my lofty goals aside. I submit to mediocrity. But to not submit would be to invite the grim reaper to dinner. He would be pounding his sickle in his palm waiting for me to collapse into depression. It is so unreal to me now, but I would be playing Russian roullette not to acknowledge it. I have never been tempted by suicide, nor have I consciously experienced a bipolar depression. All my experience with clinical depression has been hidden in the confines of a past that is dark and shrouded in a mysterious misery. I know I have been depressed before, and death did cross my mind, though I blocked it out, but I always had attributed my feelings of hopelessness to my environment, and not to myself. This week has be a vacation of sorts for me because I have been at a conference all week. The reality of worklife will strike me dead-on when I walk into the office on Monday. I am bracing myself for the most stressful period of time in my career. This entry was not all that uplifting after all. What a stupid title. |